Vietnam

Jan 23 - Feb 6

Vietnam
(note: This is a reconstruction from memory of my original post, which disappeared into cyber space one day while I was reviewing and editing.  This is why you should not blog from a Kindle - no back up files!)


Ho Chi Minh City
I'm remembering the chants from my college war protest days: "Ho Ho, Ho Chi Minh, Viet Cong are gonna win". They did, but communism is a memory here; it's now a bustling free market economy. Traffic is thick, loud and smelly. Like Cambodia, it's mostly motorcycles, but here there are one or two people per moto and they are wearing helmets. In Cambodia five to a vehicle was not unusual, but helmets were. I see a moto driver balancing a big pot of orchids on his thigh and a woman on the back of another using both hands to eat her noodles rather than hold on to the driver. Another driver has a mid sized dog riding crosswise on his floorboard, yapping all the way. Most of the motorcycle riders are wearing dust masks, presumably to block some of the exhaust fumes from entering their lungs.  We take a thoroughly touristy "Cyclo Resto" tour on people-powered trishaws. It's rush hour (it always seems to be rush hour) and we eat exhaust fumes.
 

Red light, Ho Chi Minh City



Cyclo Resto Tour

 

We visit the War Remnants Museum, about the Vietnam War. But here is known as the AmericanWar. It's fascinating to see it from the side of the victors. The courtyard is filled with abandoned American military equipment, and I'm feeling uncomfortable before we even get in the door. Inside we see multiple graphic images of the carnage the US inflicted on this small country. One American military officer is quoted as saying "If we killed it, it's Viet Cong". But of course we couldn't tell who was and who wasn't Viet Cong. They've reconstructed an American war prison, and we see the infamous tiger cages, the size and shape of a coffin, but made of barbed wire. Suspected Viet Cong were left out in the tropical sun in these. After our visit to the killing fields in Cambodia, who were the bad guys, anyway? We also learn about the horrid ongoing birth defects caused by Agent Orange.

Abandoned American equipment at the War Remnants Museum

On the street, Ho Chi Minh City

We visit the former Presidential Palace, now the Independence Museum. The architect created a meditation room on the top floor, which the president turned into a disco bar. That tells you something about the government we were propping up. They've left everything as it was when the government fell in 1975, including the dusty telex machines in the basement and the old war maps on the walls.

In the city, a park has been converted into an open air flower market for upcoming Tet, the lunar New Year. It's still a week away, but preparations are in gear. We go into an electronics store so I will have my own camera, and the thumping pop music is worse than the traffic outside. I can't hear the salesman, but we persevere. Outside, Doug takes a bold approach to the relentless traffic, maintaining a slow and steady pace across the street. It works; they weave around us.

Mekong Delta
We are out of the city and in the Mekong Delta.  It's not the rural wilderness I had envisioned. It's rural, and it's intensely agricultural. Much of Vietnam's produce and rice are grown here. We see a Cao Dai temple, which combines Confucism, Taoism, Buddhism and Christianity. The big eye at the front of the temple symbolizes the fusion.  We take a boat ride on the Mekong River and visit a fruit farming island, where we also see the making of edible rice paper, coconut candy and whiskey made with one cobra and one scorpion in each bottle. We're paddled up a quiet canal, and I think of the war boats we saw at the War Remnants Museum. Our GI's were probably coming up canals just like this, but they were wondering where the next ambush was lurking.

Cao Dai Temple, Mekong Delta

Shopping for cobra-scorpion whiskey

We arrive at our guest house, which seems luxurious compared to our Cambodian homestay (this one has beds!) and take a bike tour around the fields and villages, trying to say "sin chow" (hello) to the kids. One trio of little girls in a hammock nearly upends themselves with giggles at our attempts. Our local guide, Mr. Loi, is pleasant and helpful.  Like many English speakers we are to meet in Southeast Asia, his vocabulary in English is very good.  His accent, however, is atrocious, and we are dismayed to find that his other job is teaching English in the elementary school. Doug learns to play Vietnamese shuttlecock, which is like badminton, but without racquets or a net.

Dormitory sleeping, Mekong Delta homestay

Nha Trang
Before we left Ho Chi Minh City, our guide in Vietnam, Truong ("Tchung"), told us that due to the upcoming Tet holiday (Chinese New Year), two of the three sleeper trains we're supposed to take up the Vietnamese coast are not available. Instead we'll have long daytime bus rides. It's not clear why; our group members are wondering why tickets weren't bought sufficiently in advance. One story is that during Tet the sleeper train, like an airline, is overbooked, and you may find two or three people sitting on "your" bunk, and all expecting to sleep on it. We are all frustrated, especially because it's never clear to us why we can't get on the trains.

On the way to Nha Trang, our bus is pulled over by the traffic police to check the bus registration and our driver's license. Truong tells us this is common, and that they are looking for any minor imperfection in the paperwork, after which the bus driver pays an on the spot "fine" in cash. When our driver gets back in his seat he says his paperwork was all in order.  Nonetheless, he paid a fine in order to get us back on the road. After the long bus bus ride, we arrive in Nha Trang, which has a long lovely beach.  There are lots of tourists here, and lots of them are Russian.  I presume this originated at the time of the fall of Saigon and some sort of bonding between the Russian and Vietnamese communists.  Russians don't seem to be inhibited.  The men are especially beguiling with their bulging sunburned tummies escaping from their scanty speedo swim suits. We walk along the beach and to the river, where we see the fishing boats in the harbor. Doug gets a 21,000 dhong ($10) shave and haircut.

Beach at Nha Trang

Off shore at Nha Trang

We visit the market, along with a lot of Russian bargain hunters. We also visit the food market, which is outside on the street.  The aisles between the vendors in the market are about three feet wide and full of shoppers, but this does not deter the motorcycle riders, who cruise down the narrow aisles to do their shopping from their seats.  People are very tolerant, no one complains, they just wait for the motorcycle to move on so they can pass through the market. Like Ho Chi Minh City, the sidewalks are crowded with flowers for sale for the Tet holiday.  Most Vietnamese get around on motorcycles and many have been temporarily modified with wooden platforms on back in order to haul flowers home for Tet. 

Truong advises us of more trip changes due to Tet. After we reach Hanoi we will visit Halong Bay, where we are to spend one night on an island.  For some reason that is never explained, our ferry to the island has been canceled.  As an alternative, Intrepid Travel is offering a $38 upgrade to spend the night on a tour boat in the harbor.  This sounds good to 15 of the 16 people in our group, but one is unwilling to pay the extra cost. Intrepid's policy is that we must have full agreement.  After much discussion and many phone calls between Truong and his boss in Hanoi, we have a deal.  Most of us will pay $40 for the upgrade, since Truong must stay with the "original tour" (which now is just him and our lone dissenter in a bayside hotel) and the rest of us must pay for a local guide to go out on the overnight boat with us.  No one is going to get lost on the boat, but this is policy - we must have a guide. I suspect that this type of group dissention and prolonged debate is very un-Vietnamese. We must be as much of a mystery to them as they are to us.

Saga of the Sleeper Bus
Due to the cancelled sleeper train up the coast, our schedule now includes an 11 hour daytime bus ride north to Hoi An.  There is some more grumbling about Intrepid scheduling this tour during Tet, when things in Vietnam are so busy.  A few of our group have discovered the sleeper bus, with reclining seats, and several took the sleeper bus to Nha Trang.  When we got off the day bus to Nha Trang, they look fresh and alert.  We didn't.  So a group of 10 of us, including Doug and me, have decided to opt for the sleeper bus instead of the next long daytime bus  ride to Hoi An. Truong is nervous.  Intrepid, he says, considers the night buses unsafe. We must sign a liability waiver saying we have voluntarily declined Intrepid's care during the overnight bus ride.

When we buy the bus tickets, the bus is scheduled to leave at 6:30 pm. Soon we're told it will actually leave at 8:30, but not to worry, it will still arrive at the same time in the morning.  This is worrying.  At 9:15 the transfer bus finally arrives to take us to the bus station.  On the way, the transfer bus stops at a small ticket office, and the guy who collected our tickets on the transfer bus gets off with our tickets in his hand.  He says not to worry. We arrive at the bus station ticketless, and the transfer bus driver waves vaguely toward a big bus which we assume to be the sleeper bus.  Our luggage is taken from the transfer bus and piled with other luggage alongside the sleeper bus.  People are handing in their tickets and getting on the bus, but every time one of our group tries to get on we are told to wait. How many seats are on this bus?  How many are left?  Meanwhile, they are loading our luggage onto the bus. We boldly decide that the 10 of us gringos, the only people left outside the bus, will stand in front of the bus if it starts to leave with our luggage aboard and us still in the parking lot. Our nervousness increases.  Suddenly, something happens (a phone call?), and we are allowed on the bus, putting our shoes in plastic bags like everyone else.  Some of us are on the main floor, and some are "upstairs" on the upper level.

As the clock approaches 10:00 pm, we pull out of the bus station.  I expect us to head for the highway, but no, the bus backs into an alley. We are waiting.  For.  Something.  Eventually, something is loaded into the luggage compartment and at 10:20 the bus is moving toward the highway.  I resolve not to look at my watch any more.  The recliner seat is fairly comfortable for me, but cramped for Doug.  We are given small pillows and blankets.  I decide not to think about how often the blankets are washed.  There is a toilet in the back with a "No Defecating" sign on the door.  Despite this stricture, the toilet is not a happy place to visit.  The bus is bouncing down the road and this has affected people's ability to pee in the pot.

On the sleeper bus

My seat is near the window and I settle in.  Doug is next to me, but closer to the middle of the bus where he has a clear view out the windshield. He tells me in the morning that his view impaired his ability to rest.  This double decker bus is large and fast.  The driver drives like a bat out of hell (to make up time, or is it always like this?). We barely slow down when going through towns and villages.  The driver just lays on the horn and barrels through, even though he is passing motorcycles and bicycles, some of which have no lights.  It's a "might makes right" system, and the smaller vehicle drivers all understand they need to get out of the way when the hear the bus honking. 

Hoi An
The sleeper bus arrives in Hoi An in the morning.  True to promise, the bus is not late, although we left Nha Trang almost four hours late.  Despite the crowds of shoppers for Tet, Hoi An is pleasant.  This is a UNESCO world heritage site.  When the ethnic Han Chinese took control of China, many non-Han Chinese moved to Vietnam.  Later, the Chinese empire took control of Vietnam for 1,000 years. There are numerous elaborate Chinese clan houses and temples.  When the French took control in the 1800's, they changed the Vietnamese alphabet from Chinese lettering to Roman lettering.  I enjoy reading the Vietnamese words as if in English - "My Dung", "Duc Phuc" and some fusion language - "Fashion Dung".

Chinese clan houses, Hoi An

Clan house

Truong leads on a walking tour, and later on a bicycle ride. The bike ride goes into the local countryside and is a nice respite from the busyness of the city.  We see rice paddies and organic gardens that supply some of the more upscale restaurants.  Later Doug and I take a bike ride to the beach, then decide to bike to the street market.  Big mistake.  The market is so crowded I think I could stop pedaling and the bike wouldn't have room to fall over. We quickly give up, and I convince Doug to go for pedicures and reflexology foot massages.

In the countryside outside of Hoi An

Walking along the river, we find a boatman looking for passengers. Doug negotiates a price for a ride down the river to the island where the river meets the sea. Soon, we see a small boat with an elderly gent throwing his net.  We are snapping photos and our boatman keeps edging closer and closer.  Won't he disturb the fish?  Eventually the boats are completely alongside each other and the fisherman is offering Doug a chance to throw the net and pointing at me to take pictures.  Now we get it, he was fishing for tourists all along.  After a reasonable tip, we depart.  As we approach the island, our boatman asks if we want to go actually go around to see the backside, which is more scenic and will entail a larger fee.  We agree, and coincidentally pick up the boatman's mother on the back of the island and give her a ride back to the dock.


Fisherman on the river

Hauling flowers home for Tet on the back of the motorcycle

It's finally the day of Tet, the lunar New Year.  Hoi An is decked out with silk lanterns of all sizes.  Along the river, there are beautiful silk sculptures glowing from the lights inside.  Many are horses, as we are entering the year of the horse.  Due to the multiple transportation changes to this trip, Intrepid offers us all a free New Year's dinner.  We're told to eat as much as we like, but pay for our own drinks.  Somewhere during the meal Truong is on the phone to his boss again, and he has to tell us the "all you can eat" budget has been exceeded and dessert is no longer included.  The guy who just ate two desserts is not pleased. After dinner and a few drinks, then admiring the silk sculptures, I'm ready for bed. We start for the hotel, but the 20 to 30 year-olds from our tour group are perched on stools outside a backpacker bar and flag us down.  It's two-for-one night and their small table is covered in drinks.  They need help, so we sit down and consume some mixed drinks that are outside of our regular menu.  Doug convinces me it's late enough that we should stay for the midnight fireworks, which are well done.  At one point there is so much smoke in the air the fireworks are paused so it can clear.   

Silk sculpture



Silk sculpture for the year of the horse

Fireworks and silk lanterns for Tet

 

Hue
The next day we get on the bus to Hue, another UNESCO heritage city.  Along the way we climb up the mountains along the coast.  On top of one, we see an ancient brick defense tower meant to ward off the Chinese.  Next to it are concrete pill boxes built by the French to ward off the Vietnamese nationalists, and later used by Americans to watch for Viet Cong.  We visit the "water rice museum", and see traditional methods of growing rice in flooded paddies. We see a complicated gambling game involving some type of paper chits and people sitting in booths.  We visit an ancient arena, where the kings watched tigers fighting elephants. The kings favored the elephants, which they used for ceremonies and for warfare.  Tigers, on the other hand, were considered predators and some of the kings had the tigers' claws removed before they entered the arena.

Eating pho. Noodle slurping is mandatory.  Yum.

Hue is a former capital city on the Perfume River, and the kings built palaces, pagodas, temples and fortresses. The largest fortress is the Citadel, which covers acres and acres.  We don't have a guide for the Citadel, and we miss hearing the information we might have absorbed from a guide.  At one of the tombs, Truong had informed us that the  emperor died of "too many concubines".  I couldn't tell if he was serious. Doug and I stroll along the river, drink some beers, and seek out some more "pho", Vietnamese noodle soup in outstanding broth.  You get noodles, meat and broth in the bowl, and a huge plate of fresh herbs and vegetables that you add on your own.  Noodle slurping is mandatory.

In the market, Hue



Ancient well, modern transportation

Hanoi
We are finally on a Vietnamese sleeper train.  The toilet is only slightly less offensive than the toilet on the sleeper bus.  At least you wouldn't be breaking the rules by defecating in this one.  We're sharing a four person compartment with Tony and Margaret from England.  They're about our age, recently retired, and are somewhere in the midst of a six month trip.  They turn out to be fine berth mates.  Doug and Tony are gentlemen and take the upper bunks.  We're lucky to have night time companions from our tour group.  We find out later that people on our tour shared compartments with barfing children. Another was told to retire to her upper bunk at 6:30 because the people below were putting their kids to bed.  There are no extra seats on the train; if you've reserved a sleeper berth that's where you go.
 

Buddhist ceremony for Tet, Hanoi

Morning exercise, Hanoi

We arrive in Hanoi around 5:30 in the morning, and can't check in to the hotel until 11:00.  We drop off our luggage, and Truong leads us on a walking tour which includes breakfast.  Hanoi seems to have a somewhat different feel from the other Vietnamese cities we've seen.  People seem largely uninterested in tourists; not unfriendly, just not interested.  We see lots of families strolling around in their new clothes for Tet.  We walk along the small lake and see people exercising and doing Tai Chi on the lakeshore.
 

Doug and I visit the infamous "Hanoi Hilton", where John McCain and other American pilots were held captive.  The museum explains that they were well treated and shows them in photos playing volleyball, and wearing fresh clothes for the photo.  However, the focus of this museum is its earlier history, when it was used as a French colonial prison.  Resistance to French colonialism goes back as far as the French history in Vietnam, to the 1800s.

We also see the Temple of Literature, which dates back to around the year 1,000.  This is where scholars received advance education through Confucian teaching.  Their "PhDs" are literally written in stone, and the steles pronouncing that they have passed their final exams are standing about five feet tall, upright and planted in the soil. We also take in the water puppet show.  This is an ancient tradition, the puppets were used to tell traditional stories in the rice paddies after the rice harvest.  Now it's mostly a show for the tourists.


At the "Hanoi Hilton" prison

As Doug and I take another stroll around the lake, a woman on a park bench motions me over and asks where I'm from.  I assume she wants to practice her English.  However, she asks if she can be our guide.  I tell her we already have a guide, but she becomes persistent, suggesting that since she lost one leg as a child in American bombing, we might want to hire her due to her "circumstance".  She looks about the right age to have been a child during the war.  I decline, and suddenly she is in the candy selling business, offering me some untasty looking sweets and a ridiculously inflated price. I offer a small donation to help her deal with her "circumstance", but she says she doesn't want charity.  I don't want the candy, so I feel bad and we leave.  Later, Doug points out that panhandling is probably illegal, so instead she says she's selling candy.

We visit the mausoleum for Ho Chi Minh, where he lies in a glass coffin and is maintained annually by Russian technicians.  The guards inside and outside are wearing spotless white uniforms and they are not smiling.  No photos are allowed. Inside, it's very formal and quite silent, despite the fact that there is a steady stream of people filing past the coffin.  Even the children seem to understand that they are seeing the founder of their modern nation, and they are quiet and respectful. It's an oddly moving experience.  Then we move on to the Ho Chi Minh museum, where I'm looking forward to learning more about his life and his politics.  It's educational, but there is no clear narrative from birth to death.  Instead, there are lots of details about specific incidents in the life of Ho Chi Minh.  I think this is because this museum was designed for the Vietnamese, who already are well acquainted with his life story.



Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum

 



Guards at Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum.  I wasn't supposed to take this photo.

Outside the Ho Chi Minh museum we sit down for a cool drink.  A young man approaches and we launch our new cover story.  We're from Canada.  He smiles and says "How nice, I spent several months in Toronto."  Fortunately, he does not ask us anything about Toronto, like where we live.  He turns out to be a Chinese student, traveling as far and wide as his time and his wallet will take him.


Halong Bay
Next day, our group travels to Halong Bay.  If you've seen photos of Vietnam, you've probably seen Halong Bay.  It's stunningly beautiful, with thousands of small limestone islands standing out of the waters of the bay.  They're tall and extremely steep sided, you could only climb up with climbing equipment.  It all looks very "oriental".  We visit a large cave, and then go kayaking from our tour boat.  On the back side of one island we get excited to see monkeys, till we notice the feeding platform that the guides have set up so the tourists will say "Ooh, ooh, ooh" when they see monkeys.  The guide says they're "Jello monkeys", but I think something has been lost in the translation.  Apparently they are pretty good swimmers and move around the islands. Our tour boat is rather luxurious, and we enjoy the drinks and fine food. In the morning, our chef demonstrates how he carved the vegetables into flowers and carved a "net" from a large carrot to place over the steamed fish. In the morning Doug looks on You Tube to remember how to carve the carrot net.  There's the video, filmed right on our boat by a previous guest and featuring our own chef. 

Halong Bay is not pristine. We see some floating trash, and when our captain puts down the anchor for the evening we can see at least 20 tour boats like ours.  Nonetheless, it has been a very pleasant time.


Halong Bay



Tour boats, Halong Bay

 

Sunset at Halong Bay



Kayaking at Halong Bay

Convenience store, Halong Bay.  It comes to you.

We return to Hanoi, and then go on by bus to Vinh.  Apparently there's not much to see in Vinh, it's the only place in Vietnam where the Intrepid tour offers no options.  So we sleep, and in the morning I try the eel soup as part of my breakfast.  Not bad. We are taking the bus to the Laotian border, and finally we see something of rural Vietnam.  People are planting rice.  We see ox carts and water buffalo, and lots of people bicycling to tend to their rice paddies. When we reach the border, Intrepid ensures another smooth border crossing.

We've enjoyed our time in Vietnam, but wish we had visited during a less busy time of year.  Tet is very intense, with the busyness of the preparations lasting over a week, followed immediately by the post-Tet closings of museums, restaurants and massage parlors.  Our path followed the coast from south to north, and we saw a lot of urban areas instead of rural life.  But we wouldn't have missed this visit for the world.

 

Scenes from Vietnam

 



Fisherman on the Mekong

Commercial fishing boat on the Mekong



Tet, acres of potted mums for sale

Pork at the market



Motorcycle ferry boat



Hoi An, decked out for Tet with silk lanterns



Girls selling floating candles for Tet

Monk novitiates taking a break